N.H. Supreme Court upholds Dover woman’s murder conviction

DOVER — The New Hampshire Supreme Court is upholding the conviction of a Dover woman who is charged with paying her ex-husband to kill her boyfriend in 2008.

The court rejected the appeal of 44-year-old Dianna Saunders on Friday, who claimed she did not consent to a search of her home and vehicles after David King’s body was found in the basement of the home they shared.

It is said that Saunders hired her ex-husband, Roy Saunders, to kill King. Roy then hired his son, Derek Saunders, as well as Derek’s roommate, Scott Mazzone, to commit the murder. In a plea deal, Derek Saunders and Mazzone admitted to killing King and Derek admitted to having competed a “dry run” of their actions the day before the murder.

The Dover Police Department investigated the murder beginning in Aug. 2008 when King was found dead in the basement of Saunders Old Dover Point Road home with a slit throat and bullet in his head.

Saunders was not home at the time her boyfriend was killed. Instead, according to a Foster’s article dated March 8, 2011, phone records show that she remained in touch with Derek and Mazzine throughout the day to ensure King was home and she was not.

She is currently serving a life sentence after a jury of 12 convicted her in March 2011 on two counts of theft, conspiracy to commit murder and being an accomplice to murder. That sentence also required Saunders to pay the cost of funeral services for King and restitution of the $350,000 she stole from her former real estate partner Dr. William Meredith.

According to the same Foster’s article, Saunders took $350,000 from a joint bank account between October 2007 and January 2008 that she held with Meredith and placed the money into at least six different bank accounts in her name only, using the money to purchase a new home in Texas and to pay the mortgage of a Dover home she was supposed to be renovating on Broadway. The proceeds of selling the home were to be given to Meredith, but the property was illegally sold in a short sale, the article states.

Defense lawyers argued during the trial Saunder’s ex-husband arranged the killing on his own, out of jealousy. Juror’s deliberated for nearly four and a half days.